Counting Stars
by blank canvas of me
Summary: "It was like waking up with no teeth. Sammy didn't have to rush to the mirror to know they were gone." After Hazel leaves for Alaska, Sammy finds himself a depressed, hollow-shell of who he used to be. Somehow, counting stars ends up unsettling him and comforting him at the same time. "Depressed it just another word for sad. Stars are just another word for Hazel." Character death.


**Counting Stars: **

**(I do not own PJO/HoO) **

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He isn't going to lie.

He's going to put this quite bluntly, actually. Plain and simple and down to the point. So, here goes- he misses her and it hurts. Because he misses her, he can't help but think of her. Hazel Levesque, with her cruel mother and curly brown hair with mocha, dark skin. Hazel with her kind smile and smothered giggles whenever he did something that wasn't respectful, but amusing nonetheless. He never told her this aloud, but her eyes would always sparkle when she'd laugh. Cliché and ridiculous to think, but true. They did sparkle. Her dark eyes that seemed to have seen all the pain of the world, shortened to a fraction when she smiled. They would light up, turning the sweet color of creamed coffee. There would be a small twinkle in her eye, one that couldn't be overlooked. She smiled, really smiled, and that sparkle would be there, identical to the shining stars above.

He tosses and turns all night, clenching her gift tightly in his hand, counting the stars when he gives up on rest.

Every time he shuts his eyes, he sees her.

She wouldn't have just left without saying goodbye.

He pretends when he wakes up that he hadn't been crying. Because he's a boy, practically a man, and his father would beat him if he knew he was sobbing his eyes out over a girl. If he discovered that it was about 'Witch Girl' then all hell would be loose on him.

The world felt as if it was falling apart at the seams. Kids at his school would be chattering away, and he would be alone, forever wondering why they didn't care that she was gone. Sammy's world was gone, his reason was gone- don't they care? But they don't know his story, her story, _their_ story, and he can't find it in his heart to blame them for that.

She's been gone for a year and the pain never gets any easier. The hurt.

He begins to sleep more, when he actually can. Sammy used to get up at early hours of the morning, when every creature was just awakening, but every human was still resting. The sun would be peaking beneath the clouds and the sky would be a rich, dark blue, mixed in with an orange that looked like messy paint strokes against the morning sky. He used to love mornings. It was his one single moment where he could let his armor fall and stop hiding behind jokes. He could stop pretending for a moment. He could stop pretending that his father's drinking problem was getting worse and his mother wasn't doing anything to stop it. He could take a deep breath, and when he exhaled, his breaths would be mixed in with sobs. Sobs that weren't smothered or choked, but cries that were finally let free.

But he likes being unconscious now. He likes not feeling her absence. He wakes up, of course, and a few seconds later, it all comes rushing back.

It's like waking up without teeth, he thinks. He doesn't have to rush to the mirror to know they were gone.

Sometimes he wishes that he never met her.

He takes it back a moment later, apologizing profusely to Hazel. You know. Hazel. The girl that wasn't here. The girl that was gone without saying goodbye.

_One, two, three, four, five, _he counts. Five stars. Five beautiful twinkles that are in his view but he could never quite reach.

Sammy's mother is worried about him. She thinks he's _depressed_. It's just another word for sad, she tells him comfortingly. And if this is the first time she's noticing that he's _sad_- because quite frankly, he's been _sad_ for years, and she's never bothered to notice until now- then he doesn't really care what she has to say. He can't exactly tell her why he's _sad_, because then she'll merely laugh it off as some kind of regular problem that occurs in all his youth. Deep down, he knows it's not. Michael Felay, the boy that insults him and hits him, he couldn't possibly feel this way when the girl he had been courting called it quits.

_Six, seven, eight, nine, ten_, he counts, his brown eyes numb and unblinking. Ten stars now. Ten stars away.

Everything around him is out of reach, just like her. He doesn't smile anymore, he feels nothing but a numbing pain in his heart, his chest feels hollow where his love for Hazel used to be. No one can console him, they try, his mother tries, (his father doesn't give two shits) God knows they try but all Sammy feels in response is overwhelming depression. (It's just another word for sad).

He's laying there, watching out the window, thinking about a day when she'd maybe come back. He'd be sitting on his porch when he sees her- beautiful as ever, her white dress flapping in the wind as she walks down the dirt path. He catches view of her, happiness spreading through his chest and leaving him raw for all the world to see. For her to see. She smiles, though it's a sad one, and tears flood her eyes as she breaks into a run. He embraces her, just like he's dreamed about for the past year and she explains why she's been one of those stars he can't quite grasp. Everything is okay again. But then he blinks and realizes that he's still laying in bed, and she's not really here, and she's not coming back. Ever. Ever is a long time, Sammy thinks. Ever is a long time to hurt. The pain will never end, will it? He holds the diamond a little bit closer to his heart, curling tighter under the wool blankets.

He hates the feeling.

He thinks that he's known it, for a while. That she's dead. It makes sense if he thinks about it. No letters, nada. The sinking feeling in his chest, the hopelessness. It all adds up. But if she's gone, truly gone, to the extent that she's never going to kiss him again, what does he have to even live for?

_Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen_, he counts. Fifteen stars. Fifteen Hazels he can't get to.

"I'm sorry. I love you." He whispers to the stars, hoping that somewhere, someway, Hazel could hear him.

Then he grabs the diamond and slices his wrists.

_Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one. _

Depressed is just another word for sad.

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_(Stars are just another word for Hazel)_

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**A/N: I swear, this just popped onto the entire document. I just re-read SoN and it pretty much inspired this entire short one-shot. Obviously Sammy doesn't commit suicide in the books, because then we wouldn't get our beloved Leo Valdez, but I felt like doing a little bit of a dark spin to it. Hazel/Sammy will forever be my OTP. R&R if you liked it, or even if you didn't. All opinions matter. **


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